


The Night Parade

by EzraTheBlue



Series: FFXV Halloween Shorties [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: FFXV Halloween Week, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 10:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21178163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzraTheBlue/pseuds/EzraTheBlue
Summary: Prompto is seeing and hearing things marching past the tent in the night.(For FFXV Halloween Week, Day 1: Ghosts)





	The Night Parade

**Author's Note:**

> Theme for Day 1: Ghosts

**The Night Parade**

He's sure he sees them in the night. When Prompto opens his eyes in the middle of the night, his body rising to invisible stimuli that prick at his hands like stigmata or burn in his eyes like he'd looked into the sun, he sees them around the tent. 

Sometimes, he thinks he hears them too: marching boots and the shuffle of feet. Clanking, groaning metal in syncopated series of lockstep, and he hears them marching past the tent. He sees their shadows on the walls, like silhouette puppetry playing against the distant, dimming starlight. 

Once, he tried to wake Noctis up, shaking him frantically, "Noct, Noct, _ Noct!" _ He pleaded with his somnolent, prone form, but Noctis groaned and rolled over, and Prompto could swear he heard a death rattle instead. He shoved his pillow over his head and hyperventilated into his bed roll until the distant noises stopped and Prompto slipped into the liminal state of mind between rest and wakefulness, too afraid to rise and face his fears and terrified to sleep in case whatever he hid from faced him. 

They fought on day by day, but the nights grew longer, and the night parade haunted him longer too. Finally, Prompto couldn't take it.

He'd killed daemons, Red Giants, scores of MTs, monsters he'd never even dreamed of existing roaring to life in front of him, and though he'd yelled and taken hits and nearly fallen into his own grave once or twice, he'd survived. He could face these shadows. 

When Prompto woke with a start and a curse, when the marching began, when the shadows crossed the tent in columns, Prompto readied his gun and loaded his Starshells, and burst from the tent alone, ready for a fight. 

But no fight waited. Instead, hundreds, maybe thousands of pale blue-grey men marched past in swaths that cover the plain. They passed through trees, weightless, as if they weren't even there, their faces forward as if they wore blinders. Prompto could see that many wore chunks of familiar armor, broken helmets, carried weapons. What he noticed most, however, was that all of them wore his face.

Or, parts of his face.

Their faces were warped. Broken noses, crushed jaws, missing eyes, holes cleanly through their heads, but Prompto could place it. He saw his own brow, the shape of his eyes, his jaw, his nose. None of them saw him. The broken armor clanked and creaked as they passed him by, all headed East towards Altissia, towards Tenebrae, towards Niflheim and Gralea. 

They marched on, an endless stream, their final parade, soldiers homeward bound. Prompto instinctively turned with them, and, as if pushed by some unknown force, took a few steps forward.

For a moment, Prompto blinked and saw through the slats of a broken helmet, then saw himself staring down the barrel of a gun, and looking into his own face.

Then, the ghost passed through him and walked along, another final memory.

Prompto exhaled and watched them march onward, dropping to his knees as breath left him. The MTs marched on around him, a thousand memories accomplishing their final mission in postmortem, broken armor creaking and groaning as the souls that had been pushed inside marched on. Prompto watched the night parade stretch on and on until dawn touched the horizon, and their gleaming shades faded into the light.

Sometimes Prompto still hears them. He knows he's not dreaming it, and every time they march past, he shivers and squeezes his eyes shut, but he whispers a prayer that there is a home waiting for them, a place where they might someday find rest.

He hopes there is a resting place for him, too. 


End file.
